Tuesday, June 4, 2013

Old Jarhead's Political SitRep for June 5, 2013

Old Jarhead's Political SitRep for June 5, 2013

Robert A. Hall

Your one-stop-shop for political news and opinion. Please forward to friends who need to be informed. This SitRep (Military for “Situation Report”) is created by many readers who send me items for inclusion, which I would have likely missed or skipped. And I can only spend at most three hours a night pulling stuff, plus the healthcare or economic stuff that crosses my desk at work. As always, I—and you—owe them thanks and appreciation. I post articles because I think they are of interest and will stimulate thought and discussion. Doing so doesn’t mean that I necessarily agree (or disagree) with every—or any—opinion in the posted article, or that I was able to verify the information presented, which is the responsibility of the author. I try not to post things that are false, or too far a stretch, regardless of the view point, but I don’t always succeed. As always on the Net, or in the legacy media, you must read critically and with skepticism.

Excerpt: It's been an interesting couple of weeks. Rather than a dedicated topic this morning, I decided to capture some of the events and thoughts - in no particular order. As usual, some things to think about and some humor. Here we go...

Excerpt: The main public sector union federation, the leftist KESK which represents 240,000 members, launched a two-day strike, originally called over workers' rights, to protest at the police crackdown on what had begun as peaceful protests. (Looks like the lovely "Arab Spring" has come to Turkey. May keep them too busy for awhile to send boats to aid terrorists n Gaza. ~Bob.)

Excerpt: Drunkards, extremists, foreign agents and even Twitter – Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan is heaping blame on everyone except himself and his ruling party for an outbreak of violence involving a broad spectrum of Turkish society. (Ah, the Obama Strategy. ~Bob.)

Excerpt: Most of the Americans had left the country. They include Sam LaHood, son of the U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. He received a five-year jail term. Present at Tuesday’s hearing was American Robert Becker, who received a two-year sentence. Becker has maintained that his refusal to flee Egypt with fellow Americans who were in the country at the time of the crackdown on nonprofit groups was to show solidarity with his Egyptian colleagues. (Quick, send more Jizya! ~Bob.)

Lautenberg’s Death Continues Sharp Decrease in Military Veterans in Senate

excerpt: The number of senators who had served in the military has been dropping since the late 1970s. In the 95th Congress, which convened in 1977, 81 of the 100 senators were veterans. That was a record high at least since 1945, which is as far back as the Senate Historical Office data goes. In contrast, only 16 current senators have served in the armed forces.

Excerpt: With Hizballah increasingly taking on a front-line role in defending Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) is highlighting a video from the 1980s in which the group's leader envisions Lebanon as part of an Islamic Republic under Iranian leadership.

Britons warned to steer clear of Turkey as 1,700 protesters arrested after riots rock the country for a third day

Excerpt: Secretary of State John Kerry said Monday that the Obama administration would sign a controversial U.N. treaty on arms regulation, despite bipartisan resistance in Congress from members concerned it could lead to new gun control measures in the U.S. . … Still, gun-rights supporters on Capitol Hill warn the treaty could be used as the basis for additional gun regulations inside the U.S. and have threatened not to ratify. Last week, 130 members of Congress signed a letter to Obama and Kerry urging them to reject the measure for this and other reasons.

Congresswoman Lynn Jenkins (R-KS), a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, tells PJ Media that the ongoing IRS scandal must be a wake-up call for reform to the tax system: The whole IRS scandal, it screams for comprehensive tax reform … so the IRS never has this power again to reach into the lives of the American people. At the heart of all these scandals is a government that has gotten too big, too unruly. …If ever there was a time to make the case for a fair tax or a flat tax and abolishing the IRS, this would be it.

Excerpt: The Treasury Inspector General who uncovered the improper targeting of Tea Party groups by the Internal Revenue Service said Monday he was stunned by what his investigation uncovered. Russell George, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA), said the targeting at the IRS his probe discovered was "unprecedented," and the closest comparison that came to mind was the targeting of political enemies by the administration of Richard Nixon. "During the Nixon administration, there were attempts to use the Internal Revenue Services in manners that might be comparable in terms of misusing it.

President Obama’s healthcare law is under attack in the courts even as the administration sprints toward full implementation….One set of lawsuits accuses the Internal Revenue Service of illegally implementing new subsidies to help people buy insurance. Separately, more than 60 lawsuits have been filed challenging the law’s mandate for health plans to cover birth control.

Excerpt: Obamacare is going to be superior to the current health care system in every way and anything people heard to the contrary was obviously a lie cooked up by Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh and the Tea Party to hurt poor people. It sounded great. Of course, it also sounds great when a Nigerian prince offers to give you millions of dollars to help him get money into the United States.

Excerpt: In short, the self-feeding nature of this scheme will automatically continue to increase the likelihood of being denied coverage with every passing year, as we see steady increases in the number of “death panel” decisions to deny coverage which steadily reduce statistical life expectancy, which causes cost/benefit calculations to worsen, which causes more denials of coverage. It’s going to be a vicious circle which steadily intensifies its own effects toward wiping out the population of seniors.

Excerpt: As of June 1, CampLeatherneck in southwestern Afghanistan will close its 24-hour sandwich bar and stop producing the hot meals traditionally offered during the midnight-ration service. Rather than offering a hot meal to troops beginning or ending their shifts at midnight, the base will now only provide a “Meal, Ready to Eat,” known as an MRE. These pre-packaged meals supply the necessary calories to soldiers but aren’t considered terribly good for morale. (True per Snopes; also, similar articles appear from January 2013…. Article notes O firing 20,000 Marines; while hiring IRS agents for ObamaCare…~Bob.)

Excerpt: The acting head of the IRS told congressional investigators Monday morning that his agency has “betrayed the trust of the American people.” Republican Rep. Ander Crenshaw began his questioning of Danny Werfel — the newly appointed head of the IRS — whether the agency had violated its relationship with the American public. “I do, Mr. Chairman,” Werfel replied. “I think that’s why — thinking about this in terms of my primary mission — is to restore that trust,” (Best argument for flat 10% tax on EVERYONE including those on the dole and “disability” addicts. Everyone should put some skin in the game; that way, the gimmee mores get representation with taxation…SNAPS $$, disability checks, phones, all have value and are benefits and should be taxed. No exemptions; don’t like it, move. ~Bob)

Excerpt: The tornado outbreak that swept through Oklahoma Friday night moved in quickly, for the second time in two weeks, and the cluster of twisters were deadly. In the storm's aftermath, 13 people have been confirmed dead. Among them were three veteran storm chasers. Tim Samaras, his son Paul Samaras and their colleague, Carl Young, were all killed while trying to document and research the storm.

Excerpt: Iran has cut up to £15 million a month in funding for Hamas as punishment for the movement's backing for the uprising in Syria, the Palestinian Islamist group's leaders have admitted. (Trouble in Jihadville. ~Bob)

Excerpt: A teacher at an Islamic school, a mufti, surely knows all about the teachings of the Qur'an and Sunnah. And yet he joined these bloody jihadists. How did he come to misunderstand Islam, the religion we must believe is peaceful on pain of charges of "Islamophobia," so spectacularly? Why do no authorities ever ponder the implications of such questions?

Excerpt: The shameless shills for the Democrats. That would be the media of course. Consider just the latest example. On Friday, the Democratic National Committee released this memo claiming the Republicans had spent the month of May “overreaching” on the IRS investigation. By Monday morning, the Washington press corps rallied. Greg Sargent at the Washington Post declared, “It’s very clear that GOP scandal overreach is now prompting a real media backlash.”

Excerpt: Last Wednesday, Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman accusedIran of “infiltrating” South America and establishing intelligence networks aimed at carrying out more terrorist attacks in the region. Nisman said the effort has been ongoing since the 1980s in Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile, Colombia, Guyana, Surinam and Trinidad and Tobago. “These are sleeper cells,” he explained. ”They have activities you wouldn’t imagine. Sometimes they die having never received the order to attack.”

Excerpt: “We need to think very, very clearly about who the enemy is. The enemy is the United States of America and everyone who supports it.” The statement transcribed above is but a small sampling of the venom and hatred that typically spills from the mouth of Haunani-Kay Trask, a Professor at the Center for Hawaiian Studies at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. A guru of the racial separation/ethnic nationalism movement, Trask routinely abuses her position an educator (and American tax dollars) to spread racist and anti-American doctrine throughout the University of Hawaii student body, sometimes violently opposing the dissenting voices that arise on campus and elsewhere on the Island.

Excerpt: The man accused of a mass shooting that killed 13 and wounded dozens plans an unusual defense. (In a sane world, a defense like this wouldn't work. But we no longer live in a sane world, so it just might. This is now the world of Attorney General Eric Holder and Islamic apologist President Barack Hussein Obama, where right is wrong, up is down, and two plus two sometimes equals five. - LLW)

Excerpt: A thirteen year-old Canadian, Briar MacLean, was reprimanded by school officials for potentially saving the life of one of his fellow classmates. After defending the victim from an armed student, the vice principal chastised MacLean, saying that he should have gotten a teacher involved instead of acting quickly. (And he didn't even have a menial to hold his umbrella! ~Bob.)

Worth Reading: If you pay them money, partisans will tell you the truth

Excerpt: Political scientists John Bullock, Alan Gerber, Gregory Huber (all at Yale) and Seth Hill (at UC-San Diego) have a new paper that presents strong evidence for the they’re-just-liars theory. They ran two experiments. In the first, they split respondents into two groups: Those in the control group were asked basic factual questions about politics; those in the treatment group were asked the same questions but were entered into a raffle for an Amazon gift card wherein their chances depended on how many questions they got right.

US government website reveals numerous highly sensitive details of launch site to be built for Arrow 3 system, crucial to Israel’s protection against nuclear threats

Excerpt: The US government has publicized classified information detailing the location, design and specifications of a launch site to be built from this summer for Israel’s new Arrow 3 anti-ballistic missile system. The details, apparently spilled in error, appear to include highly sensitive information relevant to the struggle against Iran’s nuclear ambitions. The material specifies, for instance, that the launch site must be completed by the end of next year, by which time, it says, Israel expects to have the Arrow 3 — a missile defense system crucial to Israel’s plans for countering an Iranian nuclear threat — operational.

College Professor at MarshallUniversity calls for NRA members to be shot by firing squad for treason. By Tom Tillison

Excerpt: While passing himself off as “mainstream,” Swindell labels the NRA’s concerns as “knuckle-dragging Cretan talk” and accuses the organization of advocating for the overthrow of the U.S. government: “Here it is. The NRA advocates armed rebellion against the duly elected government of the United States of America. That’s treason, and it’s worthy of the firing squad. (I’m not an NRA member—they endorsed Harry Reid. But I must have missed the part where they advocate armed rebellion. I hope they sue him. ~Bob.)

Excerpt: Iraqi officials have claimed that they have uncovered an al-Qaeda plot to carry out poison gas attacks in the Middle East, Europe and North America. The attacks could have possibly been carried out by remote-controlled toy planes, which were seized at two workshops in Baghdad, the BBC reported. Mohamed al Askari, a spokesman for Iraq's defense ministry, said on Saturday that five suspects were detained over operations at the two facilities, where they were allegedly planning to produce sarin and mustard gas using instructions from another Al Qaeda group, according to Sky News.

Excerpt: Currently the Obama administration is facing three big scandals — the IRS targeting, the bugging of AP and Fox, and Benghazi. Now we have scandal Number Four, just as large in scope. For the last four years the Obama Administration has conducted a major “outreach” program to Islamic groups in the United States and in the Middle East.

Excerpt: Over the last half century, governments have increasingly embraced privatization. Shifting some or all aspects of government service delivery to private sector provision is a strategy to lower the costs of government and achieve higher performance and better outcomes for tax dollars spent, say Leonard Gilroy, director of government reform, and Adrian Moore, vice president of policy analysis, at the Reason Foundation.

Blind To Terror: The U.S. Government’s Disastrous Muslim Outreach Efforts And The Impact On U.S.Middle East Policy

Excerpt: Why has the U.S. government called certain Islamic groups supporters of terror in federal court, and then turned around and called these same organizations “moderates” and embraced them as outreach partners? In a number of cases from the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations, the leaders of these organizations (some of whom are now in federal prison) were under active investigation at the same time they were meeting with senior U.S. leaders at the White House and the Capitol and helping develop U.S. policy. Now these same Islamic organizations and leaders have openly encouraged a purge of counterterrorism training that have effectively blinded law enforcement, homeland security, and intelligence agencies to active terror threats as seen in the inaction of the FBI concerning the Boston bombing suspects and other terror cases.

Excerpt: American Petroleum Institute Director of Regulatory and Scientific Affairs Howard Feldman warned that new ozone regulations currently under review by the Obama administration and the Environmental Protection Agency could put “nearly the entire country” out of business. “Such strict standards are not justified from a health perspective and are not needed to continue air quality progress,” Feldman said Thursday on a conference call with reporters. “The potential of significant national economic harm with stricter standards at or below naturally occurring levels is real.

Didn’t get the “Islam is a Religion of Peace” memo. ~Bob. Excerpt: As many as 97 girls at two schools in northern Afghanistan have fallen sick after a suspected gas poisoning, the Pajhwok news agency has reported. A total of 77 girls at a school in Maimana, in Faryab province, and another 20 girls at a school in Behsud, in Sar-e Pol province, fell ill after reportedly smelling gas during the classes.

Excerpt: "Indian police say that a 30-year-old American woman has been gang-raped in the northern state of Himachal Pradesh," the BBC writes. "Police said that the woman had been attacked after she accepted a lift by a group of men in a truck in Manali, a resort town in the state."

Excerpt: Last month, State Police stepped up patrols at public water supplies after seven Muslims were caught trespassing at the Quabbin Reservoir in Belchertown. State Police are investigating, though they say “there is no evidence of any crime other than vandalism.” Huh? Isn't cutting the locks from three separate access hatches located at approximately half-mile intervals along the aqueduct a crime? Police say that there is evidence of an attempt to cut a fourth lock.

Great website blurb

Please use the comments to demonstrate your own ignorance, unfamiliarity with empirical data and lack of respect for scientific knowledge. Be sure to create straw men and argue against things I have neither said nor implied. If you could repeat previously discredited memes or steer the conversation into irrelevant, off topic discussions, it would be appreciated. Lastly, kindly forgo all civility in your discourse . . . you are, after all, anonymous. (I should have this posted on “I’m Tired.” ~Bob.)

Excerpt: Today, 60 percent of total welfare payouts in Sweden go to immigrants. Problems such as child poverty, which the welfare state was supposed to have solved, are reemerging as a consequence of immigration. Second-generation immigrants born in Sweden remain less likely to work or graduate from college than the children of natives are. … Multiculturalism may be well-intentioned, but it has disastrous consequences. It is simply not true that Afghan culture equips one for success in the West as much as Swedish culture does. Some integration naturally occurs despite multiculturalism, but the overall failure is hard to deny.